LZW31 Black in 3 way with dumb dimmers

I have two weird behaviors:

  1. When I switch off from the LZW31 I get green/blue/red sequence and then no led on the switch. Switch can then only by switched on from the physical switch.

  2. Dumb dimmers act only as on/off and not as dimmers

I wired it as a direct replacement for an existing dimmer that was the “controlling” switch. It had line/load and then travelers to then the other switches so I copied that set up for the LZW31. I configured as non-neutral and 3 way toggle, but the same behavior happens if I configure as neutral.

Switching off from the dumb dimmers works fine - LZW31 goes peacefully into off state with LED on.

Where did I go wrong?

Inovelli dimmers are only compatible with 3 Aux switches. You cannot mate them with other dimmers.

If you have a neutral installation, you can also mate with dumb switches, just not dimmers.

As of now, these auxiliary switches are the only ones supported:

  1. GE Enbrighten Add-On #12723

  2. GE Enbrighten Add-On #46199

  3. HomeSeer Add-On #HS-WA100+

As @Bry said, the Inovelli won’t work with a 3rd party 3way dimmer. The Inovelli measures the current on the load and traveler line to figure out which one the 3way switch has attached to the bulb. When that switches, it concludes the 3way switch has clicked and it turns the power on/off. When a dimmer is involved, it can’t make that measurement.

There are two options for you if you want dimming.

One is as Bry said, use a GE/Jasco or HomeSeer companion switch.

The other is use another Inovelli dimmer, and link them together by Z-Wave association. This has the advantage that you can use multi-tap scene commands, LED bar notifications, and see the LED bar on both switches.

Thanks for the feedback @Chris and @Bry … saved me many additional hours of experimentation.

Hi again, I’ve now got my “dumb” 3 way and 4 way on/off switches to create the set-up advised, but before I begin, should I put the LZW31 as the 1st switch where the power comes in or the 3rd switch just before the lights?

My set-up will be line > 3 way > 4 way > 3 way > load with shared neutral.

Tx

Ken

Yes